


Just a little bit of trust

by caterplina



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Cat!Taeyong, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 19:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10646436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caterplina/pseuds/caterplina
Summary: Johnny finds a stray cat on the street and takes it home.





	Just a little bit of trust

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 1st round of NCT Fiesta.
> 
> This fic is a little bit rushed and I don't really like how it turned out, but I hope you can still enjoy it

Like waterfalls on the window of his car, the rain hits hard. There’s no way of seeing much beyond a few meters. Prudently, Johnny drives slowly, trying hard to see the name of the street. If he can’t find the way to the new music store he wanted to check out, he’s going back home. It’s a bad day to be outside in the street and Johnny hadn’t bothered to check the weather forecast. Big mistake, he thinks as he turns around the corner.

A flash of silver in front of the car makes him step on the break. But the car keeps sliding over the water. It slows down and he presses the clutch. His heart beats wildly in his chest while he frantically searches for something silver. He leans over the passenger’s seat, but almost chokes himself with the seatbelt. He unbuckles it with shaking hands. The rain doesn’t stop, but he gets out of the car. The flash of silver still present in his mind.

As Johnny walks closer, covering his eyes from the rain so that he can see more clearly, feeling his hair get wetter by the second, he notices there’s a shivering silver furred cat pressing itself against the wall, trying to get under a garbage container.

“Wow! Kitty,” Johnny says. The cat turns to him, looking even more desperate to cover itself. When Johnny leans down, the cat hisses and tries to scratch him. Johnny pulls back. “Sorry. I just wanted to check if you were ok.”

He laughs at himself for talking to a cat on the street in the middle of a storm.

“Kitty, do you have a home?”

The cat meows and then hisses again. And that’s enough answer for Johnny. There’s no bell on his neck, not even a collar.

It takes Johnny a few seconds to consider it. He can help the kitten, bring it with him and then help it find a home. He takes off his jacket, carefully stepping closer to the cat, whose eyes turn into slits. Quickly, Johnny covers it with his clothes and brings it to his chest. The cat struggles to get free, yowling really loudly, but Johnny manages to control it. When they get to the car and they’re protected from the rain, the cat stops moving, like it’s waiting for something to happen.

Johnny puts the wrapped up cat on the floor, right under the passenger’s seat and starts the engine. The cat meows quietly, but at least it’s not thrashing or causing trouble.

It takes him a while to get home because he first has to find the right street. He laughs at himself while driving and talking to the cat, telling it all about his failed outing to the music store. When Johnny’s building is in view and he starts to slow down the car, the cat meows again pitifully. Johnny chuckles, right before he sneezes. His grey t-shirt is stuck to his body like a second skin; it’s uncomfortable and cold.

The first one to get dried is the cat, when Johnny covers it with an old towel. He rubs gently all over the cat’s body, feeling it shiver on his lap. Although he can feel the claws on his legs, he is protected by his jacket. He carefully brushes the cat’s fur, puffing it up.

“Look at you, cutie,” he says.

The cat glares at him. Yet, it stays still. Johnny’s apartment is clearly much warmer than the street.

“Smart kitty.” Johnny smiles.

After he’s done, he leaves the cat on a pillow in the corner of a room. When the cat hisses, Johnny laughs and covers it with an old t-shirt of his, then goes to take a shower. Clean and warm after the shower, he finds the cat is still a small ball on the pillow, no longer shivering, but not comfortable enough to be sleeping. Brown eyes glare at him. His fur is still dirty and knotted; if Johnny could wash it, he imagines it could shine bright. He has never seen a cat with silver fur like that.

“Wanna eat something?” Johnny asks.

The cat hisses.

“Okay,” Johnny says, moving his eyebrows up and turning to the kitchen. He looks for a can of tuna, wondering when he last ate some. The last can of the cheapest brand peeks out behind packets of unhealthy ramyun. “Ah-ha!” He exclaims loudly, taking it out. After opening it, he serves half of it on a small plate and walks back to the living room.

“Hungry?” He asks the cat when he sees its ears and whiskers twitching. He places the plate in front of the cat and steps away. “What a pretty little kitten you are,” he comments when the cat reaches the plate with its muzzle. The cat glares at him and hisses, fur standing on end. “Okay, okay.” Johnny walks away.

The laptop is still open on the desk. Johnny decides to get back to work; he needs to edit what he translated before going to the store. The publisher’s asked him to have the translation done by the next week. He works on it, going over the text and comparing it with the original, passing it through the system to count the words. It takes him a while to hear a quiet meowing going on in the corner of the living room. He peeks at the cat and sees the empty plate, the kitten licking its muzzle clean. The cat looks at him suddenly, and Johnny is startled, almost falling off his chair.

“Want more?”

The cat glares, but meows in response. Like following an order, Johnny gives it the rest of the tuna. Then, he goes looking for an electric heater, as his legs have started feeling cold; he places it not too close since he doesn’t want to feel them burning. Work is easier like that.

About half an hour later, he realizes that he’s got company. The silver cat is curled into a little ball by the heater. It’s sleeping so soundly, it makes Johnny’s chest feel warm. “Sleep well, kitty,” he says. The cat opens its eyes and glares at him. Johnny sighs.

 

 

 

The following day Johnny takes the cat to the veterinary to check on it. It’s a healthy, young male cat. The veterinary points out the cat’s unusual fur; it’s silver, not white. 

The first few days with the cat are a time of adaptation for the both of them. Once the cat is sure that Johnny won’t throw him back to the streets, he stays quietly in his own little corner. Johnny refers to him as “Kitty”, “Kitten” or, when he tells his neighbor Ten about it, “the cat”. Ten’s suggested he gave him a name. Johnny had a giggling fit when he thought of calling him “Silver Cat”. Ten’s slap to the back of his head made him dizzy and stop the giggles.

Silver Cat is sitting on Ten’s lap, who is the only human who’s allowed to touch him. Ten’s petting must be soothing or he must have given him some catnip when Johnny wasn’t looking, because the cat is the most calm and trusting it’s been since he arrived.

“He’s adorable,” Ten says with a fond smile.

“Do you wanna keep him?” Johnny suggest, half jocking, half serious.

“I can’t. You know I’m never home.” The cat purrs as Ten scratches softly behind his ears.

“Well, I can’t keep him… He doesn’t like me.” Johnny tries to pretend that he isn’t affected by it. But it sort of upsets him that the cat doesn’t trust him, after Johnny took him out of the streets. “Why don’t you like me?” Johnny whines. “You think you’re all great, just because your fur is silver. But you’re just a common stray cat.”

The cat glares at him.

“ _Tae_ … _yong_!” Johnny laughs loudly. Ten looks confused; his hand stopped petting the cat. “It means _great_ and _common_ ,” Johnny explains to him. “I’m gonna call it Taeyong.”

“Well, at least it has a name now. Do you like it?” Ten asks the cat and keeps on petting him.

The cat meows as a reply and Johnny and Ten take it as a _yes_.

 

 

 

The distance between Johnny and the cat, Taeyong, only shortens when the heater is on. Johnny talks to the cat often; whenever he does something around the house, he likes to tell him out loud what he’s doing. Taeyong looks at him with his strong, unblinking stare. Johnny likes to think that they’re getting along just fine. The cat doesn’t hiss or yowl whenever Johnny walks past his corner of the living room.

When their second week together begins, Johnny is surprised to find that even without the heater on, Taeyong curls near his feet and naps. Focused, Johnny is working a new translation, when his calf starts itching and he leans over to scratch it. He finds Taeyong’s silver fur close to his foot. His fingers twitch; he wouldn’t have to stretch far to reach him. When he moves his hand closer, Taeyong opens his big black eyes. 

Time stops.

It’s like a staring contest. Taeyong’s intense stare makes Johnny’s heart beat fast in fear. In this moment, Johnny realizes that Taeyong is an impressively beautiful cat.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers in awe.

The cat closes his eyes, as if accepting the compliment, and surprisingly leans his head on the floor, closer to Johnny. Thanking his long fingers for making it easier for him, Johnny’s hand comes in contact with Taeyong’s fur for the first time since the cat arrived. He scratches the cat behind his ear. Although the cat doesn’t purr, he allows Johnny to keep on petting him. Delighted, Johnny leaves his chair and kneels on the floor, continuing his petting. He doesn’t want to push things, so he stops after a few minutes. Taeyong looks at him again, and they come to the mutual agreement that the petting must stop.

 

 

 

Johnny unlocks the door to his apartment and steps in. He takes off his shoes, as he drops his messenger bag on the floor, not worrying about the mess his house is becoming. He’s got no one to impress.

His home is strangely silent, he realizes when he steps into the living room. Listening carefully, he expects the usual soft noises Taeyong makes in his sleep. The cat is nowhere to be seen or heard. There’s a new sound, almost like human breathing.

Johnny walks around the couch and sees skin, lots of fair skin exposed. He cries loudly when he notices legs, arms, a butt; a naked person on his couch. Said person turns over startled, unfortunately showing himself in all his glory to an extremely shocked Johnny.

“What’s this? Who are you?” Johnny steps back, ready to run and ask Ten for help.

The guys stretches lazily on the couch, suddenly relaxed, a pleased moan leaving his throat. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them to look at Johnny, Johnny falls on his butt.

Piercing black eyes stare at him. The guy’s face has really strong features, framed by strange silver colored hair.

He looks almost like…

“Taeyong?”

“Hello, Johnny.” The guy’s voice is not as deep as Johnny’s but it matches his face.

“Are you really Taeyong?” The guy hums. “How did this happen?”

Johnny stays on the floor, his long legs spread in front of him, overwhelmed by the new development.

“The same way it always happens.” Taeyong yawns.

“It’s been days and this has never happened before.” Johnny feels on the verge of a hysterical fit, shock still containing him.

Sudden knocks on the door startle him even more.

“Johnny? Johnny? What happened? Are you okay?” Ten asks from behind the door banging it after each question.

Johnny stands up and heads to the door, but his eyes never leave Taeyong. The guy is sitting on the couch, head peeking out from the backrest. His hair is messy from sleep, but his eyes stay alert, and as piercing as always. It’s the strangest thing Johnny has ever seen, such a cat-like human.

Ten almost falls down at Johnny’s feet when he opens the open to his neighbor.

“What happened?” Ten’s eyes frantically search for a sign of injury on Johnny’s body. When he doesn’t reply, Ten looks around and sees Taeyong. “Oh… I‒ I didn’t know you had company. I’ll leave you two alone,” he tells Johnny, awkwardly patting his shoulder.

“That’s Taeyong,” Johnny manages to say once he overcomes the shock.

“What?” Ten’s eyes grow big.

“”That, right there, on the couch ‒” Johnny points unnecessarily to the couch,‒ “that’s Taeyong. The cat. My cat.”

“Woah!” In a instant, Ten’s surprise changes to amusement as he walks to the couch. “Oh!” He covers his eyes, when he realizes that Taeyong is still very much naked. “Hey, Taeyong. How are you? Mind putting on some clothes, please?” He peeks from between his fingers.

Taeyong yawns and stretches himself again, before shrugging. “I don’t have any.”

“I’ll… get you some of mine.” Johnny says, before running to his bedroom. The mess in his closet is nothing compared to the mess his mind is, trying to comprehend how he went from having a beautiful stray cat in his apartment to a unbelievably hot naked guy where his cat was supposed to be.

The clothes are a mistake. At least, for Johnny. Ten seems okay with them. To Johnny, the bit of exposed fair skin that Johnny’s too-big-for-Taeyong t-shirt leaves is very distracting. 

The cat ‒ the guy explains to them how he can shift from a cat to a human whenever he wants. He looks very serious when he speaks, and it doesn’t surprise Johnny. Taeyong has a quiet but mesmerizing way of expressing himself, through his words and through his eyes. The similarities between the cat and the human are shocking and leave Johnny speechless.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” Ten says. “What are you?”

“Just a shapeshifter,” Taeyong shrugs.

“Why now? Why are you showing yourself to us now?” Johnny asks him.

Taeyong tilts his head to the side. If he had cat ears on top of his head, they’d stand perfectly straight and pointed. The way Taeyong stares at Johnny, inspecting him with narrowed eyes, is the way the cat used to stare at him whenever Johnny talked to it.

“I felt it was time...” He replies in the most cryptical way.

“Ohhh… You trust Johnny now!” Ten exclaims, grinning from ear to ear.

Taeyong splutters, confused, but unable to hide his reddening cheeks. “N‒no,” he stutters. 

Ten only laughs loudly. “You do. You trust him… and me, too. Thanks, Taeyong.” Ten reaches out to pat the guy’s shoulder across the couch.

Johnny stares at them in silence from his place in the love seat by the couch, surprised by Ten’s keenness and the fact that Taeyong does trust him now. If he looks back at the last few days with the cat, it did seem like Taeyong was warming up to him a lot faster.

“Ok. Fine,” Taeyong exhales. “I didn’t want to,” he mumbles, pouting. 

He looks straight at Johnny, dark eyes focused on him. It’s not a judging or a hating look; now that Johnny knows what he feels, he realizes that it’s Taeyong being defensive ‒ and scared too, if he pays closer attention to the way his eyebrows twitch. Just when Johnny feels a smile forming on his lips, Taeyong scoffs.

“Don’t get confident now. I still haven’t forgiven you.” The guy says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the backrest of the couch. The movement lifts the t-shirt over his shoulders, but the fabric soon falls to the side again, exposing his skin again. Johnny swallows.

“Forgiven me for what?”

“For what you did on the first day.” Taeyong sounds really upset, and it makes Johnny want to reach out and hug him, apologize a thousand times and cuddle him on the couch. Even though he has no idea what he did wrong. “You took me by force! Don’t you remember how you threw your jacket at me and pulled me off my hiding place?” Taeyong’s fists punch the cushion underneath him.

It dawns on Johnny. “I’m so sorry! I just wanted to protect you from the rain and bring you home, where it was warm!” Johnny stands up, raising his voice, pleadingly. It startles Taeyong.

Ten is quick to pull Taeyong into his chest. “Shhh... “ He tells the guy, a soothing hand on his arm. “Johnny is a kind person, but not very… uhmm… socially skilled. He is not good at dealing with people. Nor cats, as you’ve learned.”

Johnny glares at Ten, as he sits down again. “Thank you,” he whispers sarcastically. Then, he turns to Taeyong. “Do you want to leave, then?” The guy’s eyes open really wide, fear takes over. “No! No! I’m not kicking you out.” Johnny shakes his hands in front of himself.

Taeyong looks at him carefully. Ten never stops rubbing his arm. After a few minutes of silence, Taeyong says, “I’d like to stay”.

The words feel lighter that they should. Maybe it’s because Johnny feels lighter. He wonders since when did he become so fond of Taeyong. The cat was a nice addition to his home, but now he’s going to live with another human, who is sometimes a cat. If Johnny thinks about it a bit longer, he’s going to get an awful headache.

“Ok,” he says, clapping his hands once. “You’re staying. We’ll see how it goes.”

“I have to go now,” Ten tells them, separating from Taeyong, who looks at him curiously, half a pout on his mouth, asking him to stay. “I can come back to check on you whenever Johnny leaves the house for too long.” Taeyong nods. Ten turns towards Johnny. “If you need me, call me.” Then, he walks out, leaving them alone.

Johnny silently observes Taeyong fidgeting on the couch. The drop of the t-shirt reminds him of something. “We’ll have to buy you some clothes.”

“Thanks,” Taeyong whispers.

“I haven’t bought anything yet.”

Taeyong glares at him. “Thank you for bringing me. I had nowhere to go.”

Johnny wonders if this the moment when he’s going to learn Taeyong’s story, but the guy doesn’t say anything else. That amount of trust will come in time. For now, Johnny is pleased to have learned something else about Taeyong… the fact that he’s a shapeshifter.

(At night, Johnny spends his time in the dark in bed, searching the word “shapeshifter” on Naver on his phone.)

 

 

 

The clothes look good on Taeyong; at least, they’re less distracting than Johnny’s own. He thought that going out to buy them with Taeyong was going to be an experience. But it ended up being quite anti-climatic. Taeyong was just a normal person, who knew his own sizes, could speak to the store’s employees, was even more charming than Johnny, despite his intense eyes.

Still, Taeyong, despite having his own clothes, enjoys to wear Johnny’s some days. It’s not a surprise anymore for Johnny to wake up and see Taeyong wearing one of his t-shirts.

Johnny has to deal with a lot of things, Taeyong’s human form, Taeyong’s cat form, Taeyong’s more open personality, and Taeyong’s need of physical contact in the most unexpected moments.

The first time Taeyong looks for petting in his human form, Johnny is sitting by his desk, frustrated by some corrections he has to do, when suddenly a weight falls on his lap and he meets Taeyong’s dark eyes. 

The guy curls over Johnny’s chest and murmurs, “pet me”. Awkwardly, Johnny pats his back until Taeyong huffs in annoyance. “That’s not how you do it.” He’s frowning. If he had ears, they’d be twitching. And that’s when Johnny remembers.

His hand moves to Taeyong’s head and he starts scratching his fingernails on his scalp. Taeyong lets his head fall on Johnny’s shoulder and sighs, extremely pleased with it. Johnny doesn’t know for how long he stays there, petting Taeyong, all he knows is that the shapeshifter is not the only one that finds himself relaxing at the action.

A few nights later, Taeyong, who usually sleeps on the cushion in his cat form, knocks on Johnny’s bedroom door and asks to sleep on the bed with him. Johnny is still in dreamland despite his eyes being open and his body moving to open the door, so he lets the guy crawl into bed with him. That night he sleeps well and wakes up really warm with Taeyong clinging to his side. The messy mop of silver hair and his pouty lips are a sight to behold in the morning. Johnny sighs as he stands up to go to the bathroom. His heartbeat doesn’t allow him to fall back asleep.

 

 

 

More than a month passes by since Johnny brought a silver cat home. He adapts well to living with Taeyong and seeing Ten spending more time in his home. It feels different from his life before Taeyong. He was used to spending so much time alone that he didn’t notice how good it was for him to have company. He hadn’t been aware of how lonely he was.

Now, when he looks at Taeyong’s sleeping form on the couch while he types away on the computer, he realizes that Taeyong filled every space in his home. If Taeyong ever were to leave, it’ll be hard to find a replacement for him.

Taeyong is still a mystery, though. No matter how close they’ve become, no matter how much Taeyong trusts him, there are things untold that hand in the air and loom over Johnny in moments when his curiosity gets to be too much.

“What happened to you?” Johnny asks one day, when he gets home from a meeting with his boss. He shakes his umbrella in the hallway before crossing the door. 

Taeyong doesn’t get it at first; he tilts his head, confused. He looks at Johnny from his seat by the window. It’s a rainy day; not a full storm like the day they met, but it is raining hard. 

“How did you end up on the streets?”

Johnny walks up to the couch after having taken off his shoes and Taeyong joins him, crawling on his lap, just like a cat. Johnny’s learned what’s the most comfortable position for both of them to spend a long time like this, cuddling together.

A deep sigh leaves Taeyong’s lungs. Johnny waits for him, knowing today is the day he’ll learn his story.

“I used to live with a few other shapeshifters,” Taeyong starts.

“Cats?”

The shapeshifter shakes his head and his silver hair brushes Johnny’s jaw. “All types of animals. There were five of us. We were all part of the same litter of experiments.” 

Taeyong’s hand grips Johnny’s shirt tightly. Johnny takes his hand and soothes it, linking their fingers. He feels Taeyong take a few deep breaths before he continues. 

“We had escaped from the lab where people were experimenting on us. To be honest, I have no memories of my life before the lab, so I don’t know whether I went there willingly or not.”

In Johnny’s arms, he starts shaking. Johnny holds him even tighter, placing a kiss on his temple.

“I don’t even know for how long I’d been living there.” Taeyong lifts their linked hands and stares at them. “I made friends there. Friends with whom I planned to escape. We succeeded, and those months in which we tasted freedom were the happiest of my life.”

His voice trembles when he starts talking about that.

“We believed we were safe. But it all ended one night, when strangers barged in. We were staying in a rural house, barely scraping by, but we had each other. After that one night, when we all ran away separately, we didn’t have each other anymore.”

Listening to Taeyong’s story and feeling the way his body moves, the way his voice sounds as he tells it, it makes Johnny promise to himself that he will keep Taeyong safe, no matter what. The story itself sounds strange, fictional and delirious. But Johnny has on his lap a young man who can transform into a cat. He’s ready to accept almost any sort of story.

“I’ve said it before, but… thank you for rescuing me.”

Taeyong turns his face to look him in the eye. From so close, his eyes seem deeper and darker; they’re breathtaking. All Johnny can do is nod dumbly and whisper a “you’re welcome,” dumbly.

“At first, I thought you were one of them. And when you put me inside your car, I… gave up. I was almost hoping that if they had captured my friends too, maybe that was my chance to see them. So when I found myself in your home, which looked nothing like the lab, I realized that you were just a nice man.”

Then, Taeyong smiles. Slowly, his lips pull up and his eyes brighten. It’s beautiful. Johnny feels the urge to kiss him right there.

“So, thank you. I may not see my friends again.” Johnny squeezes his hands at that. “But I’m glad I met you and you saved me.”

“You can stay here forever.” It’s a very strong statement that leaves Johnny’s mouth without permission. But he doesn’t take it back; he can’t take it back. Not when Taeyong’s smile widens even more.

“Johnny...” Taeyong hesitates. He bites his lips shyly and it brings Johnny’s attention to his mouth again. That mouth is going to be Johnny’s death one of these days if Taeyong keeps looking like this. Johnny doesn’t know when his attention from Taeyong’s glare and his dark eyes moved to his mouth and his beautiful smile. It must have happened in the last few days, or maybe earlier.

The point is that Johnny finds himself focused on Taeyong’s lips. Lips that curl up knowingly before Taeyong leans closer and kisses Johnny. Shy at first, then a little more daring. Just close mouthed short kisses that express not just his gratitude but that he likes Johnny.

Johnny’s heart is loud inside his ears as he kisses back. It’s easy to get himself lost in the feeling of Taeyong’s lips on him. He hadn’t realized how much he needed this. It wasn’t just Taeyong who needed someone to make him feel safe. Johnny’s loneliness had creeped in on him without him having realized it. Now that he has Taeyong in his arms, he knows he is fine.

The most important thing for Johnny is that he has gained Taeyong’s trust and he wants to keep it forever, protected under layers and layers of attention and care. He wants to help Taeyong feel normal, despite his strange situation. He realizes that he’s already been doing it. He’s treated him as a roommate, as his friend, and maybe from now, he can treat him as his boyfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/caterplina).


End file.
